Trump makes his closing argument on impeachment, cobbling together his greatest Twitter hits

  • December 17, 2019
Trump makes his closing argument on impeachment, cobbling together his greatest Twitter hits

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For anyone who’s been paying attention over the past three months, the actual arguments undergirding the letter are familiar. Democrats have always sought to take him out through impeachment, he claims, cherry-picking examples of comments by Democratic elected officials. The impeachment inquiry was unfair, he says elsewhere, sidestepping his administration’s decision to limit its participation. The phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was perfect, he insists — though it is neither the case that this is a universally held position or that the sum total of the allegations against him are contained within that call.

Nor is the letter confined to his rhetoric about Ukraine and the impeachment inquiry. It ranges widely, including a lengthy paragraph outlining his self-defined successes as president and looping in the investigation by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III for good measure.

Again, though, you’ve heard this all before. Allow us to demonstrate, using tweets and retweets offered by the president, many of which are simply quotes from people appearing on Fox News.

Sections of Trump’s letter to Pelosi

“The Articles of Impeachment introduced by the House Judiciary Committee are not recognizable under any standard of Constitutional theory, interpretation, or jurisprudence. They include no crimes, no misdemeanors, and no offenses whatsoever.”

“You have cheapened the importance of the very ugly word, impeachment!”

“By proceeding with your invalid impeachment, you are violating your oaths of office, you are breaking your allegiance to the Constitution, and you are declaring open war on American Democracy.”

“Even worse than offending the Founding Fathers, you are offending Americans of faith by continually saying “I pray for the President,” when you know this statement is not true, unless it is meant in a negative sense. It is a terrible thing you are doing, but you will have to live with it, not I!”

“I then had a second conversation that has been misquoted, mischaracterized, and fraudulently misrepresented. Fortunately, there was a transcript of the conversation taken, and you know from the transcript (which was immediately made available) that the paragraph in question was perfect.”

“I said to President Zelensky: “I would like you to do us a favor, though, because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it.” I said do us a favor, not me, and our country, not a campaign. i then mentioned the Attorney General of the United States. Every time I talk with a foreign leader, I put America’s interests first, just as I did with President Zelensky.”

“You know full well that Vice President Biden used his office and $1 billion dollars of U.S. aid money to coerce Ukraine into firing the prosecutor who was digging into the company paying his son millions of dollars.” (This is not true.)

“President Zelensky has repeatedly declared that I did nothing wrong, and that there was No Pressure. He further emphasized that it was a ‘good phone call,’ that ‘I don’t feel pressure,’ and explicitly stressed that ‘nobody pushed me.’ The Ukrainian Foreign Minister stated very clearly: ‘I have never seen a direct link between investigations and security assistance.’ He also said there was ‘No Pressure.’”

“Ambassador Sondland testified that I told him: ‘No quid pro quo. I want nothing. I want nothing. I want President Zelensky to do the right thing, do what he ran on.’”

“As liberal law professor Jonathan Turley warned when addressing Congressional Democrats: “I can’t emphasize this enough … if you impeach a president, if you make a high crime and misdemeanor out of going to the courts, it is an abuse of power. It’s your abuse of power.'”

“Everyone, you included, knows what is really happening. Your chosen candidate lost the election in 2016, in an Electoral College landslide (306-227), and you and your party have never recovered from this defeat. You have developed a full-fledged case of what many in the media call Trump Derangement Syndrome and sadly, you will never get over it!”

“You are unwilling and unable to accept the verdict issued at the ballot box during the great Election of 2016. So you have spent three straight years attempting to overturn the will of the American people and nullify their votes. You view democracy as your enemy!”

“Speaker Pelosi, you admitted just last week at a public forum that your party’s impeachment effort has been going on for ‘two and a half years,’ long before you ever heard about a phone call with Ukraine. … It only has to do with your attempt to undo the election of 2016 and steal the election of 2020! ”

“House Democrats introduced the first impeachment resolution against me within months of my inauguration, for what will be regarded as one of our country’s best decisions, the firing of James Comey (see Inspector General Reports) — who the world now knows is one of the dirtiest cops our Nation has ever seen.”

“Congressman Adam Schiff cheated and lied all the way up to the present day, even going so far as to fraudulently make up, out of thin air, my conversation with President Zelensky of Ukraine and read this fantasy language to Congress as though it were said by me.”

“You and your party are desperate to distract from America’s extraordinary economy, incredible jobs boom, record stock market, soaring confidence, and flourishing citizens.”

“There is nothing I would rather do than stop referring to your party as the Do-Nothing Democrats. Unfortunately, I don’t know that you will ever give me a chance to do so.”

“After three years of unfair and unwarranted investigations, 45 million dollars spent, 18 angry Democrat prosecutors, the entire force of the FBI, headed by leadership now proven to be totally incompetent and corrupt, you have found NOTHING! Few people in high position could have endured or passed this test.”

“You completely failed with the Mueller report because there was nothing to find, so you decided to take the next hoax that came along, the phone call with Ukraine — even though it was a perfect call. And by the way, when I speak to foreign countries, there are many people, with permission, listening to the call on both sides of the conversation.”

“You are the ones interfering in America’s elections. You are the ones subverting America’ s Democracy. You are the ones Obstructing Justice. You are the ones bringing pain and suffering to our Republic for your own selfish personal, political, and partisan gain.”

“Before the Impeachment Hoax, it was the Russian Witch Hunt.”

“Your Speakership and your party are held hostage by your most deranged and radical representatives of the far left. Each one of your members lives in fear of a socialist primary — this is what is driving impeachment.”

“I have been far tougher on Russia than President Obama ever even thought to be.”

“Our Founders feared the tribalization of partisan politics, and you are bringing their worst fears to life. … You and others on your committees have long said impeachment must be bipartisan — it is not. You said it was very divisive it certainly is, even far more than you ever thought possible — and it will only get worse!”

“I have been denied the most fundamental rights afforded by the Constitution, including the right to present evidence, to have my own counsel present, to confront accusers, and to call and cross-examine witnesses, like the so-called whistleblower who started this entire hoax with a false report of the phone call that bears no relationship to the actual phone call that was made.” (This is also not true.)

“Once I presented the transcribed call, which surprised and shocked the fraudsters (they never thought that such evidence would be presented), the so-called whistleblower, and the second whistleblower, disappeared because they got caught, their report was a fraud, and they were no longer going to be made available to us. In other words, once the phone call was made public, your whole plot blew up, but that didn’t stop you from continuing.”

“This is nothing more than an illegal, partisan attempted coup that will, based on recent sentiment, badly fail at the voting booth.”

“This is not a somber affair. You are making a mockery of impeachment and you are scarcely concealing your hatred of me, of the Republican Party, and tens of millions of patriotic Americans.”

“I have no doubt the American people will hold you and the Democrats fully responsible in the upcoming 2020 election. They will not soon forgive your perversion of justice and abuse of power.”

“It is time for you and the highly partisan Democrats in Congress to immediately cease this impeachment fantasy and get back to work for the American People.”

“One hundred years from now, when people look back at this affair, I want them to understand it, and learn from it, so that it can never happen to another President again.”

That probably makes the point effectively.

What’s worth noting, incidentally, is that the sections of the letter which don’t sound like Trump, the sections which are tonally different, can’t be matched as readily to the president’s tweets.

For example, this line: “House Democrats are trying to impeach the duly elected President of the United States for asserting Constitutionally based privileges that have been asserted on a bipartisan basis by administrations of both political parties throughout our Nation’s history.”

That doesn’t sound like Trump, and no such phrasing exists on Twitter. The impression we’re left with, then, is that Trump was presented with a letter from his staff or attorneys and decided to make a few edits.

Six pages later, he’d gotten everything off of his chest.



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